Obsessed with hats

I admit it. I’ve become obsessed with hats. More specifically, making cotton chemo caps. I think this addiction has developed because it’s satisfying to use up stash yarn, make something useful to someone else and finish a project in a matter of hours or days instead of weeks or months. And, as I make the hats, I can say a prayer or two about healing cancer.

Thursday after work, I went back to knitting the Nevis cardigan for a while, but before I knew it, I was staring at the pink cotton bouclé yarn that I had bought at the VNA Rummage Sale. Hmmm, did I have enough for a hat? And what sort of hat? So I cast on stitches to find out.

[2]I made this boucle beanie on Thursday night. It's very soft.

Four hours later, I had a pink beanie in the same pattern I’d used to make Alex’s green hat for Christmas. In the bouclé yarn, the texture of the yarn hides a lot of the basket-weave texture of the knitting, which doesn’t bother me a bit. The important thing is that there was enough yarn. In fact, I have a little left over. Not sure yet what I’ll do with it.

[3]I am really happy with the way this blue Mimosa hat is coming out.

Friday night, I got out the Nevis cardigan, but that Brunswick cotton/acrylic yarn has been sitting in the living room, challenging me to come up with more projects to use it up. I have already used it to make a cap for the daughter of my friend Diane, but I have plenty left and figured I’d use it all up on caps. So I got out the pattern for the Mimosa[4] slouchy lace beanie (free print out from Caron) and cast on.

Because this is sport-weight yarn, I’m using a size 6 needle instead of a size 8, and I cast on 96 stitches instead of 84. Then I increased to 110 instead of 99 stitches for the lace-and-cable pattern. The other modification I’m making is that instead of crossing the cable stitches every four rows, I’m doing it every six rows. The cable is six stitches wide, and I am a firm believer in the idea that for most patterns, cables lie flatter and distort the fabric least when the length of the cable is at least as many rows as it is stitches wide. In my estimation, cabling every six rows is the minimum cabling frequency for a cable that is six stitches wide.

The hat is coming out really well, and I hope to finish it today. It amazes me how doggedly determined I am to finish it.

In the meantime, this morning I was invited to a group on Ravelry called “Chemo Cap Library.” The goal is to identify and discuss patterns that are especially good for chemo caps. Not sure if I’m going to join or not, but I will lurk for a bit and see how I feel about it. When I got started on hat making, I was thinking it was a short-term thing. I keep telling myself that I don’t need to use up all my cotton yarn in one season. But I suppose that in the hot summer months, making hats or socks makes a lot of sense because the projects are lightweight.

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